1. Reading Kozol:
a.) What do you understand to be Kozol's premise? His premise is discussing how students are trained to take themselves out of their writing. We're instructed to only write in the third person and not write using our own personal voice. Kozol's concern is that students lose their ability to write in their own voice and it's very hard to re-learn.
b.) What is your stance toward this essay? In what ways does your stance towards it reflect personal experiences that you've had? I agree in part with this essay. I've often been scared to put the word I in an essay because I know the teacher/professor will take off points. It's important for our students to find their own voice in writing and be able to use it. This way, they will learn how to write authentically, not just what's going to get them the A. I think I still have a particular voice in my writing because I do a lot of non-school-related writing. I can see how many students, by the time they reach college, struggle with writing so much because it becomes an inauthentic and painful experience. They see no relation of themselves to what they're writing about or the writing itself.
c.) How do you see this essay related to Postman and Weingartnet's assertions about curriculum and education? To the historical approaches to teaching literacy (discussed through our timeline work)? There is definitely a relation to more authentic instruction. We see a shift towards a more cross-curriculum, intertwined instructional model. As a teacher, we have to make things relevant to students and one way is by connecting one subject's material to another. For example, this might look like studying the Holocaust in Social Studies and reading the Diary of Anne Frank in Language Arts.
d.) To whom would you recommend or not recommend this essay? I would not recommend this essay to old, set-in-their way, prescriptivist teachers. They may see this as an attack on their way of teaching and become defensive. I know a lot of experienced teachers have the my-way-or-the-highway mindset, where they won't change, even for tried and true, tested methods.
I think that I could use this activity in an ELA classroom in order to create name poems, using information from our [[#|name meanings]] in the poems. This is an activity we did in Dr. Pope’s class and it was really cool to see how middle schoolers are creating their identity and learning the meaning of their name adds to that self-identity. I think using name meanings would also work in a Social Studies classroom as an introductory activity to get to know students and at the same time, introduce geography. Each student researches both their first and last name, especially finding out where the names came from. Then as a class, they pinpoint on a large world map where their names came from to create a visual representation. This gets students thinking about where names originate from, is there an area that has a large concentration of names? Then students can start to think more critically about this. Is it because our ancestors are all from that area? Are there popular names from other places in the world? Think about Chinese or Arabic names. This is a great discussion to get students to learn each other’s names AND start thinking about how we fit into a global society. (from Name Inquiry)
3. Andrews Text:
I have read Andrew's LEA text before in Dr. Reaser's class, so I am familiar with Andrew's ideas on language and teaching. I like his distinction on the two language positions: descriptivist v. prescriptivist. Descriptivist is describing how people actually use language. Prescriptivist is the belief that one way is right and every other way is wrong. Teachers need to be able to be descriptivists. This means they aren't judging their student's language use. They are able to describe how their students use language and then teach them how to use language most effectively for situations. The definition of good communication is using language with the least amount of distractions to get your message across.
How can we use technology in teaching language? How do we teach our students to use language appropriately with technology (facebook and aim v. scholarly writing)? (Michelle)
5. Inquiry Follow-Up:
- In my interest in movies and television, my favorite movie and television series are Sherlock Holmes (2009 starring Robert Downey Jr.) and Sherlock (2010 BBC). They are both based on Arthur Conan Doyle's work The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and subsequent works about the famous detective. I know a bit about ACD and his writing of Sherlock Holmes, but not much. I think it would be interesting to learn about where the detective novel idea came from. I also want to know more about how ACD felt about Sherlock Holmes. I know that he killed off the detective in a story and then several years later brought him back to life. I think this is really interesting.
a.) What do you understand to be Kozol's premise? His premise is discussing how students are trained to take themselves out of their writing. We're instructed to only write in the third person and not write using our own personal voice. Kozol's concern is that students lose their ability to write in their own voice and it's very hard to re-learn.
b.) What is your stance toward this essay? In what ways does your stance towards it reflect personal experiences that you've had? I agree in part with this essay. I've often been scared to put the word I in an essay because I know the teacher/professor will take off points. It's important for our students to find their own voice in writing and be able to use it. This way, they will learn how to write authentically, not just what's going to get them the A. I think I still have a particular voice in my writing because I do a lot of non-school-related writing. I can see how many students, by the time they reach college, struggle with writing so much because it becomes an inauthentic and painful experience. They see no relation of themselves to what they're writing about or the writing itself.
c.) How do you see this essay related to Postman and Weingartnet's assertions about curriculum and education? To the historical approaches to teaching literacy (discussed through our timeline work)? There is definitely a relation to more authentic instruction. We see a shift towards a more cross-curriculum, intertwined instructional model. As a teacher, we have to make things relevant to students and one way is by connecting one subject's material to another. For example, this might look like studying the Holocaust in Social Studies and reading the Diary of Anne Frank in Language Arts.
d.) To whom would you recommend or not recommend this essay? I would not recommend this essay to old, set-in-their way, prescriptivist teachers. They may see this as an attack on their way of teaching and become defensive. I know a lot of experienced teachers have the my-way-or-the-highway mindset, where they won't change, even for tried and true, tested methods.
2. First Person/Inquiry Application:
- Name Meaning and Resources
- Ideas for use in the classroom with name inquiry
- I think that I could use this activity in an ELA classroom in order to create name poems, using information from our [[#|name meanings]] in the poems. This is an activity we did in Dr. Pope’s class and it was really cool to see how middle schoolers are creating their identity and learning the meaning of their name adds to that self-identity. I think using name meanings would also work in a Social Studies classroom as an introductory activity to get to know students and at the same time, introduce geography. Each student researches both their first and last name, especially finding out where the names came from. Then as a class, they pinpoint on a large world map where their names came from to create a visual representation. This gets students thinking about where names originate from, is there an area that has a large concentration of names? Then students can start to think more critically about this. Is it because our ancestors are all from that area? Are there popular names from other places in the world? Think about Chinese or Arabic names. This is a great discussion to get students to learn each other’s names AND start thinking about how we fit into a global society. (from Name Inquiry)
3. Andrews Text:4. Language Question Follow-Up:
How can we use technology in teaching language? How do we teach our students to use language appropriately with technology (facebook and aim v. scholarly writing)? (Michelle)
5. Inquiry Follow-Up:
- In my interest in movies and television, my favorite movie and television series are Sherlock Holmes (2009 starring Robert Downey Jr.) and Sherlock (2010 BBC). They are both based on Arthur Conan Doyle's work The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and subsequent works about the famous detective. I know a bit about ACD and his writing of Sherlock Holmes, but not much. I think it would be interesting to learn about where the detective novel idea came from. I also want to know more about how ACD felt about Sherlock Holmes. I know that he killed off the detective in a story and then several years later brought him back to life. I think this is really interesting.